Stimson Quotes & Sayings

o In the decision to use the bomb the base line had shifted down during the moral slide from the blockade to the area bombing of Germany and to the fire-bombing of Japan. Predictably one member of Stimson's committee made the point that the 'number of people that would be killed by the bomb would not be greater in general magnitude than the number already killed in fire raids'. — Jonathan Glover

We debated long over the situation for it is a very difficult question and all of us recognize its difficulty. — Henry L. Stimson

Yes, now you know. Now you know! That's what it was to be alive. To move about in a cloud of ignorance; to go up and down trampling on the feelings of those ... of those about you. To spend and waste time as though you had a million years. To be always at the mercy of one self-centered passion, or another. Now you know - that's the happy existence you wanted to go back to. Ignorance and blindness. — Thornton Wilder

As to the war with Japan, the President had already received my memorandum in general as to the possibility of getting a substantial unconditional surrender from Japan which I had written before leaving Washington and which he had approved. — Henry L. Stimson

If you are going to try to go to war, or to prepare for war, in a capitalist country, you have got to let business make money out of the process or business won't work. — Henry L. Stimson

The only deadly sin I know is cynicism. — Henry L. Stimson

The War Department in Washington briefly weighed more ambitious schemes to relieve the Americans on a large scale before it was too late. But by Christmas of 1941, Washington had already come to regard Bataan as a lost cause. President Roosevelt had decided to concentrate American resources primarily in the European theater rather than attempt to fight an all-out war on two distant fronts. At odds with the emerging master strategy for winning the war, the remote outpost of Bataan lay doomed. By late December, President Roosevelt and War Secretary Henry Stimson had confided to Winston Churchill that they had regrettably written off the Philippines. In a particularly chilly phrase that was later to become famous, Stimson had remarked, 'There are times when men have to die. — Hampton Sides

It seems as if everybody in the country was getting impatient to get his or her particular soldier out of the Army and to upset the carefully arranged system of points for retirement which we had arranged with the approval of the Army itself. — Henry L. Stimson

Russia will occupy most of the good food lands of central Europe while we have the industrial portions. We must find some way of persuading Russia to play ball. — Henry L. Stimson

We face the delicate question of the diplomatic fencing to be done so as to be sure Japan is put into the wrong and makes the first bad move ... The question was how we should maneuver them [the Japanese] into the position of firing the first shot. — Henry L. Stimson

After I had gone through this matter with the President I told him of my condition of health and that my doctors felt that I must take a complete rest and that I thought that that meant leaving the Department finally in a short time. — Henry L. Stimson

The Japanese campaign involves therefore two great uncertainties; first, whether Russia will come in though we think that will be all right; and second, when and how S-1 will resolve itself. — Henry L. Stimson

The chief lesson I have learned in a long life is that the only way you can make a man trustworthy is to trust him; and the surest way to make him untrustworthy is to distrust him. — Henry L. Stimson

I think it is very important that I should have a talk with you as soon as possible on a highly secret matter. I mentioned it to you shortly after you took office but have not urged it since on account of the pressure you have been under. — Henry L. Stimson

I had been conscious of depression and so I voiced to (Sec. Of War Stimson) my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at this very moment, seeking a way to surrender with a minimum loss of 'face.' — Dwight D. Eisenhower

The President so far has struck me as a man who is trying hard to keep his balance. He certainly has been very receptive to all my efforts in these directions. — Henry L. Stimson

I told him that my own opinion was that the time now and the method now to deal with Russia was to keep our mouths shut and let our actions speak for words. — Henry L. Stimson

Over any such tangled wave of problems the S-1 secret would be dominant and yet we will not know until after that time probably, until after that meeting, whether this is a weapon in our hands or not. — Henry L. Stimson

A sweet friend of my Hannah's said that Christmas only makes her sad. "It's just for happy families it makes everyone else miserable."
But there is a secret truth about family. Eventually you get to pick a family for yourself m. And thanks to the sticky, sweet, funny, loud, rambunctious people I chose, Christmas is my favorite time of the year. — Ellen Stimson

Now the thing is not to get into unnecessary quarrels by talking too much and not to indicate any weakness by talking too much; let our actions speak for themselves. — Henry L. Stimson

History knows no greater display of courage than that shown by the people of the Soviet Union. — Henry L. Stimson

Hope is the mainspring of life. — Henry L. Stimson

The bomb and the entrance of the Russians into the war will certainly have an effect on hastening the victory. — Henry L. Stimson

That's what it was like to be alive. To move about in a cloud of ignorance; to go up and down trampling on the feelings of those ... of those about you. To spend and waste time as though you had a million years. To be always at the mercy of one self-centered passion, or another. Now you know- that's the happy existence you wanted to go back to. Ignorance and blindness.
-Simon Stimson, OUR TOWN — Thornton Wilder

We think it will be shortly afterwards, but it seems a terrible thing to gamble with such big stakes in diplomacy without having your master card in your hand. — Henry L. Stimson

A private meeting with Hoover is like sitting in a both of ink. — Henry L. Stimson

When the news first came that Japan had attacked us my first feeling was of relief that ... a crisis had come in a way which would unite all our people. This continued to be my dominant feeling in spite of the news of catastrophes which quickly developed. — Henry L. Stimson

There has been growing quite a strain of irritating feeling between our government and the Russians and it seems to me that it is a time for me to use all the restraint I can on these other people who have been apparently getting a little more irritated. — Henry L. Stimson

Darlin'," he drawled, "go when you are invited. Bring good boots, drive slow, take blankets, carry your own salt, but by all means... go where the light is.
That's not bad advice, wherever you live. Darlin'. — Ellen Stimson

When all the arguments have been forgotten, this central fact will remain. The two nations fought a single war, and their quarrels were the quarrels of brothers. — Henry L. Stimson

The only way to make a man trustworthy is to trust him. — Henry L. Stimson

Don't you dare hide behind your illness!"
"You were the one who just said I couldn't help it!"
"You can't help being ill, but you can help what you do about it," Eithne says sharply. — Tess Stimson

We had news this morning of another successful atomic bomb being dropped on Nagasaki. These two heavy blows have fallen in quick succession upon the Japanese and there will be quite a little space before we intend to drop another. — Henry L. Stimson

I told him there was one city that they must not bomb without my permission and that was Kyoto. — Henry L. Stimson

According to Japanese scholar Yuki Tanaka, the United States firebombed over a hundred Japanese cities. Destruction reached 99.5 percent in the city of Toyama, driving Secretary of War Henry Stimson to tell Truman he "did not want to have the US get the reputation of outdoing Hitler in atrocities," though Stimson did almost nothing to halt the slaughter. He had managed to delude himself into believing Arnold's promise that he would limit "damage to civilians." Future Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara, who was on LeMay's staff in 1945, agreed with his boss's comment that of the United States lost the war, they'd all be tried as war criminals and deserved to be convicted.
Hatred towards the Japanese ran so deep that almost no one objected to the mass slaughter of civilians. — Oliver Stone

But I think the bomb instead constitutes merely a first step in a new control by man over the forces of nature too revolutionary and dangerous to fit into old concepts. — Henry L. Stimson

Honor begets honor; trust begets trust; faith begets faith; and hope is the mainspring of life. — Henry L. Stimson

History is often not what actually happened but what is recorded as such. — Henry L. Stimson

I do not see how the Japanese can hold out against this united front. — Henry L. Stimson

Today's prime fact is war," Henry Stimson had said at the start of one Interim — David McCullough

Their racial characteristics are such that we cannot understand or trust even the citizen Japanese. — Henry L. Stimson

Gentlemen don't read each other's mail. — Henry L. Stimson